Fulton physician's office manager accused of defrauding health insurers out of more than $100,000

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - The manager of a physician's office in Fulton and Utica was charged this week with defrauding health insurers out of more than $100,000 by routinely billing when there was no doctor in the office.

The unlicensed, non-medical staff in the office of Dr. Mahesh Kuthuru was routinely receiving patients, conducting drug-screening and handing prescriptions for narcotics to patients while he was living in another state, according to the FBI.

A federal grand jury indicted Bonnie Meislin on health care fraud charges on Wednesday. She's accused of repeatedly submitting bills as if Kuthuru had administered care at Upstate Pain Management's offices in Fulton and Utica from January 2010 to June 2011.

In fact, Kuthuru moved to Las Vegas in 2009, the indictment said. Kuthuru opened a medical practice there and only returned to the Fulton and Utica offices sporadically, the indictment said.

Kuthuru, 45, has not been charged. The investigation is continuing, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Katko said.

Kuthuru did not return a phone message left at his medical practice in Las Vegas. Meislin's lawyer, Kimberly Zimmer, declined to comment.

Meislin, 44, of Utica, denied to police and FBI agents that she was ever the officer manager for Upstate Pain Management, according to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Robert DeSantis.

But eight cooperating witnesses who worked in the office said Meislin was the manager and in charge of the billing to Medicaid, Medicare and private insurers, DeSantis wrote.

One former nurse practitioner told the FBI that when he or she raised concerns with Kuthuru over Meislin's billing irregularities, Kuthuru fired the nurse practitioner, the affidavit said.

The office billed Medicare for $9,021 in February 2010 as if Kuthuru had rendered care to patients, the affidavit said. In fact, Kuthuru wasn't even in the country - he was in Dubai the entire two weeks, DeSantis wrote.

The investigation began in May 2011, when officers with the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, state police and Fulton police went to Upstate Pain Management's Fulton office based on information that Kuthuru was prescribing large amounts of narcotics from Las Vegas for patients in Fulton.

The officers found no doctors, no nurse practitioners, no physician assistants and no nurses, DeSantis wrote. They found only staff members with no medical training, the affidavit said.

On a table in the office, the officers found "several hundred" prescriptions that had been filled out by the non-medical workers and that were to be sent to Las Vegas for Kuthuru to sign, the affidavit said.

One nurse practitioner who worked in the office told the FBI that he or she became aware after the fact that billing documents were sent to New York state's workers' compensation fund saying he or she had evaluated patients for disabilities, the affidavit said. The nurse practitioner never did those evaluations and was not trained to do them, the affidavit said.

Another former worker told the FBI that in February and May 2011 there were "no medical personnel of any sort" at the Fulton office, DeSantis wrote. But the non-medical workers still saw patients, did drug test screening, handed out prescriptions and billed insurers, the affidavit said.

A nurse practitioner left Upstate Pain Management because he or she wasn't getting paid in a timely manner, DeSantis wrote. Meislin once arranged to pay the nurse practitioner in cash by having a third party meet him or her at a Dunkin Donuts in Washington Mills, the affidavit said.

That nurse practitioner was "alarmed to learn that multiple prescriptions" were issued on his or her prescription pad after he or she left the practice, DeSantis wrote.

Another former worker told the FBI that his or her previous job was working at a WalMart and a restaurant, but that he or she routinely received patients, gave them urine screenings and gave out prescriptions, the affidavit said.

Two former workers said Meislin fired them because they assisted the police and the FBI in the investigation, DeSantis wrote.